Big Game Illustrated - Issue 26 by Big Game Illustrated

Fall 2019 issue CANADA/USA 6.99

COVER STORY

A SMOKER OF A BIG GUY HOT ON A DOE IN THE STUBBLE Adrian Vos FEATURE ARTICLE

FLYER 10, THE MOST RESPECTED WHITETAIL Emily Schaad

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Publisher: Big Game Illustrated Media email: info@biggameillustrated.com www.biggameillustrated.com Senior Editors: & Circulation:

Chad Wilkinson, Devin Gorder & Cody Forsberg

Production Team:

Kaare Gunderson, Shawn Danychuk Phil Webb, Adam Deutscher, Rob Hanes, Myles Thorp

BGI Field Staff:

David Lockie, Lane Hodnefield, Brad Shaw

Magazine Design & Layout:

Dougal Muir at Muir Associates

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Printed In Canada GST: 831836135RT0001 Copyright: All photographs, articles and content appearing in this publication may not be reproduced without the permission of Big Game Illustrated Media. Big Game Illustrated magazine is published four times a year.

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18 Feature Editorial A SMOKER OF A BIG GUY HOT ON A DOE IN THE STUBBLE By Adrian Vos

It all started on November 19,2017, when my friend Blaze and I were headed out to our hunting spot and seen two deer out in the field.

FLYER 10, THE MOST RESPECTED WHITETAIL By Emily Schaad

I never once thought that in 2015 such an ordinary, 120 class, two year old whitetail would end up being the buck that would put my skills, patience and knowledge to the test four years later.

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In This Issue THE DOUBLE D THAT WOULD BREAK 200 06 By Kyle Sinclair

A SMOKER OF A BIG GUY HOT ON A DOE IN THE STUBBLE

NO NAME, THE HEAVY HORNED WHITETAIL BUCK

THE MOST RESPECTED WHITETAIL

By Adrian Vos

By Brendan Scheidt

By Emily Schaad

PERFECT TIMING

TWELVE YEAR WAIT

SNAP, THE MAGNIFICENT WHITETAIL BUCK

By Tyler Richards

By Kyle Boody

By Parry Boyko

A TRUE MONARCH OF THE ALBERTA WILDERNESS

‘G’ THE VELVET GHOST BUCK

CAPTAIN CROOK

By Daniel Matichuk

By Robert Ubdegrove

By Daryk Eckert

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I started my stalk, but it ended almost as fast as it started, but I got a great look at a deer I named Sonora. His antlers were wide and laid outward just like the Sonora, Mexico, mule deer Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d grown up dreaming of. That was the last time I saw this deer until the summer of 2014. I spotted him again, in the very same field that I had the first encounter back in 2012.

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Part 2:

THE DOUBLE D THAT WOULD BREAK 200 By Kyle Sinclair

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How do you hunt a deer that doesn’t exist? Or at least doesn’t exist in hunting season? That is the position that I found myself in from 2014 until 2018. The story really starts in 2012 when, from over a mile away, I saw a huge framed mule deer in a barley field. I started my stalk, but it ended almost as fast as it started, but I got a great look at a deer I named Sonora. His antlers were wide and laid outward just like the Sonora, Mexico, mule deer I’d grown up dreaming of. That was the last time I saw this deer until the summer of 2014. I spotted him again, in the very same field that I had the first encounter back in 2012. When I got home, I told my girlfriend, now wife, and immediately went to compare video footage; it was indeed Sonora. For the remainder of the summer I kept an eye on him and his bachelor group, as Sonora was now my target buck. In his group were some great up and comers including a low 160’s main frame 4X4 that had two great drop tines. Although he wasn’t a target of mine, Double D was a deer that caught my attention and I knew he was a deer that I needed to keep an eye on for the years to come. On September 7, 2014, sometime around 9:00 am, I was lucky enough to harvest Sonora, but Double D was not with his usual friend. In fact, I had not seen Double D since before the season opened.

“The only explanation I could think of was that he was harvested by another hunter, got hit on the road by a vehicle, or fell victim to predators” Even though I had folded my tag for 2014, I kept an eye out for Double D but never did see him again until the following year in July of 2015. The interaction with Double D in 2015 was short lived and he made it into the trees before I could get any footage of him. As the scouting season went on, I was never able to locate him again. For the rest of the season I looked every imaginable place I could think of but I was never

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able to find him. The only explanation I could think of was that he was harvested by another hunter, got hit on the road by a vehicle, or fell victim to predators. I usually start scouting around mid-July and 2016 was no different. It was my third scouting trip out that year and I had been seeing some great deer, but nothing that special. Late that evening, just before dark, a giant emerged from the trees. Initially, I had no idea what I was looking at due to the fading light. All I knew was this deer was huge, and I needed to hunt him. Morning came quick and I was back out there. As daylight broke the horizon, it wasn’t hard to locate this monster in the canola crop. As the sun rose, the light started to reveal more features of this deer, it was Double D and he was nothing short of extraordinary. This buck had impressive matching eight-inch drop tines, 22+” G2’s, kickers off the G2/G3 split, great G4’s sitting on top of close to thirty-inch main beams. I had no doubt in my mind that Double D would break 200” and keep going with steam. Excited? I was ecstatic to say the least; it was great that he was back, and even better that he was packing some impressive bone growth. I spent every free summer morning and evening sitting on the side of that gravel road watching Double D. It was amazing how mesmerizing he was, hours would pass and it would feel like minutes. The tragic part was that this was my first year using a phone scope so everything was on my phone; that phone suffered a tragic ending and I had nothing backed up. Hunting season was fast approaching, and I had Double D all figured out. It was just a matter of waiting until opening day before it all came together, at least I thought so.

I went out on a Saturday morning a week and a half prior to opening day, but there was no Double D. At this point I wasn’t too concerned, something as simple as a rancher moving cattle or checking fences could have disrupted his pattern. When I didn’t see him that evening or the next morning, that is when panic set in. In fact, I never did turn Double D up again that year, not even in the winter. At this point I was completely convinced that he had been poached or taken by another hunter. I didn’t think that someone got him though because with a deer of this magnitude,

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a picture would surface or you would hear whispers of him being taken. Fast forward to July 2017. The Alberta Oil & Gas market was starting to rebound and our company was slightly understaffed. I had been working night shift for about two weeks and we just finished up a well about 3am. I knew that we wouldn’t be on the next well and ready until well into day shift so I gathered my stuff and went for my first scouting session of the year. The sun was just breaking the horizon and I was just passing some fields about a mile from where I wanted to start my scouting and something didn’t look right on a fence line dividing two fields. After I finally got the truck stopped and backed up, I could clearly tell there was a great buck standing there. This kind of caught me off guard so the buck started bounding away as I scrambled to get my spotter on the window. Just as the he hit the sky line, my spotter hit focus and there in all his glory was Double D. Now I was a little more prepared this year, I had my phone setup to store phones on the SD card, and every night all my photo’s would be backed up to the cloud. I started snapping videos and pictures of this deer right away. The morning was perfect, the sky had a beautiful pink/orange glow due to the smoke from the fires in British Columbia. I was able to get around him and in position to get some great shots with my DSLR against the orange sky. The first thing I noticed about Double D is that he still had a great frame but he had more mass and his tines were shorter. The main beam and G2 held strong, but his G3’s were set higher up on the G2 and not as long, the G4 had almost lost half its length, and the drop tines were now down around seven and five inches. Double D was still an impressive deer that would gross in the high 180’s and maybe even the low 190’s, but it was clear that his age was starting to show. His back had a bit more sway to it, the belly hung a little lower, and his face had a few more gray hairs; Double D was on the downhill slope. The rest of the summer was much like the past three; go spotting, get videos and pictures, plot locations of spotting’s to pattern deer. But this summer was different, as I had some new permission that would increase my opportunities for him. As the summer went on, I also

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found that he was bedding more in the open through the day, and I was finding him more consistency when going spotting. “Would this finally be the year?” I thought. Things were looking good and the season was fast approaching, and I felt good about how the season was going to play out. I had a good pattern on Double D and he was following a consistent pattern; right up until August 27th. August 27, 2017, as far as I can tell, nothing changed that day. No new crops were cut, no cattle were moved, I hadn’t been in the area, but August 27th was the last time I’d see Double D that year. Panic set in, I was losing sleep, and I was spending more and more time spotting trying to find the elusive deer but I was not having any luck what so every. I started to feel like an idiot for falling for his same old tricks again. He lured me in, got me hooked, and then left me crying in the rain. 2017 was an exceptional season for me so I got over it fast, but the thought of where he disappeared too always lingered in the back of my mind.

is not a sound suggestion for a 3 month old child; can’t blame a dad for trying. My first day spotting was July 20th, I was a little behind schedule but being late is better than not showing up. As I pulled up to my usual spot and immediately I could see deer bedded on the open hill side sleeping in the warm sun. I got my truck positioned and grabbed the glasses out to see what deer deserved a closer inspection with the spotting scope. Right away I found three deer that deserved a closer look. First, there was a buck that got the name of Inline, followed by Narrows, and I thought the last deer was Double D, or was it? He had a single drop on his right, very weak forks, his left side was barely a 3 point, with a kicker coming at a 45° angle off the main beam and a couple kickers up on his G2. At first it was hard to tell but after looking and studying for a long time, I could tell it was Double D. He was really starting to show his age, his ears were more droopy than usual, the gray on his face held more contrast, and he was a lot slower getting up and laying down.

“He lured me in, got me hooked, and then left me crying in the rain”

When I finally come to the conclusion that it was him I was thrilled, but not long after came the realization that, based on years past this would probably be a short-lived experience so I tried not to get to excited. As I found a few evenings here and there, as well as weekend mornings, I continued to watch Double D throughout the summer just as I had done the previous years. The more I watched him, the more I could see that this old fella was on a downhill slope and I didn’t know how many Alberta winters he had left in him. This year he seemed to be spending a lot more time alone than previous years. He wasn’t isolated from the group, but he was always found 300 yards away from the bachelor group and seemed to enjoy bedding and eating alone. I was quite ok with this, because if for some reason he decided to stick around to hunting season it would be fewer eyes to avoid. We were now into the last week prior to hunting season and I was anxious for a few reasons. This first was that this is about the time that Double D usually disappears, and the second was that I knew that the canola would soon be getting cut, that would disrupt his pattern and potentially make him disappear. chairs. It was getting down to the wire, it was the day prior to the season

Coming into the scouting season of 2018, I knew things were going to very different for me, but in the best way possible. May 10, 2018 my wife and I welcomed our first child into this world and Cannon Sinclair-Smith instantly became my newest hunting partner, he just didn’t know it yet. Raising a child and stalking mule deer have one major factor in common. You can read about it, watch videos on it, and witness others do it, but none of that will prepare you for your experience and you better figure it out on the fly and quick. The 2018 summer scouting time was drastically reduced. Not only did I want to be home more often than not, but my super hero of a wife needed a hand. She was doing a heck of a job at raising our child, but it was easy to see she was getting wore out. So I traded in spotting scopes and glasses for bottles and burp clothes more than a few times so momma could have a show and a good uninterrupted nap. I did suggest taking Cannon spotting with me but apparently that

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opening and I got a phone call from my friend, “Hey bud, I’m just headed over to swath the field where you’ve been watching that big buck, did you want to jump in and go for a ride with me?”. It was To say the least, I was more nervous than a cat in a room full of rocking chairs. It was getting down to the wire, it was the day prior to the season opening and I got a phone call from my friend, “Hey bud, I’m just headed over to swath the field where you’ve been watching that big buck, did you want to jump in and go for a ride with me?”. It was a nice gesture, but I quickly reminded him that I work an 8-4 job and I was at work, so I was not able to join him. For the contents of this article I had to tone down our actual conversation so it could go to print. For the next 30 minutes I tried to convince him of 85 other tasks he could do other than cut that crop; he gave me an E for Effort and started dropping the canola. That evening I was out spotting and right at last light I found Double D about a mile away in a pasture working his way towards an alfalfa field. Now I had a decision to make on what I was going to do the following morning for the opener. Do I stay in my truck and try to get eyes on him and stalk him, or do I go in early and setup on the trail he is on tonight? I decided that I should try and setup on him since he would probably follow the safe route back to his new bedding spot.

September 1, 2018 At 4:30am my alarm went off, not that I was sleeping anyways, and I was quick to jump up and get ready for opening day. At 5:30 am my truck was parked and I was getting ready, I had a 1/2 mile hike into where I wanted to setup and legal shooting light was at 6:20am. By 6:00 am I was positioned where I thought he would come and I would be able to see him about 150 yards out so I would have time to get ready. As every minute ticked by, I was looking west trying to find the shape of a deer feeding towards me. As the sun rose and filled the field with light, pure panic set in as there wasn’t a single deer to be seen. I then made the decision to move south and look down the ridge into the canola fields to see if they were down there. As soon as I broke the rounding of the hill and could see the fields I could see multiple deer. I didn’t even waste time to see what was there, I just turned and started running the 1/4 mile to my truck. Within no time at all I was down to my truck, moved around to the other side of the hill and overlooking the canola fields. I looked the deer over one by one but Double D was not in there. I decided to stay for an hour and watch as I had seen a couple bucks stand in what was left of the standing canola and then bed back down. Sure enough, after about 15 minutes, Double D rose out of the crop and started feeding. The plan I worked

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out couldn’t have been any more perfect, I knew the crop was too tall to shoot him in it as when he was standing as I could hardly see more than his head. Just 25 yards to the west of the cut and uncut edge was a nice little ravine. Now this ravine ran the length of the 1/4 section from south to north and would provide a perfect opportunity to get in close and undetected. I could see that Double D was slowly moving east toward the crop edge so I didn’t waste any time. I drove down to the farmer’s machinery yard and parked my truck, a quick 150 yard walk east and I was in the ravine completely undented. The wind was blowing at a stiff pace and it was right in my face. I started off up the ravine at a brisk walk as I didn’t want to be too late, a couple of times I snuck up to the west edge of the ravine just so I could get eyes on Double D’s antlers to make sure he was still holding his position. In less than 10 minutes I was positioned directly east of Double D and only 25 yards from the edge of where I suspected he would emerge from the crop. Over the next hour I watched as he slowly fed to the west edge of the cut/ uncut crop; he was supposed to move east towards me. Not a big deal as this could still work. I repositioned to the north edge of the cut/uncut as I knew my friend would be showing up to continue cutting here very soon. I knew that he would resume cutting on the west edge where the deer were feeding and he would be coming from the south so it would push them north right to me, or so I thought. I got setup and settled in, about that time I could hear the deer blowing at something. I slowly rose to my knees to see three coyote pups running full out towards the eight bucks. In anticipation of them coming north, I readied my bow and watched. Everything seemed as if it was going to work out just how I planned, but then the deer started angling west a touch across the swathes. By the time they got up in line where I was and they stopped, they were standing out at 125 yards, way outside my effective range. After a quick stop and look back at the coyotes, the deer turned and continued north up the hill. They didn’t seep spooked but I didn’t want to push them any more with today only being opening day. That evening I returned and decided that I was just going to spot so I could try and get eyes on Double D and make a plan for that morning. I was out right until

the very last light faded and Double D did not show himself anywhere. With not knowing where he was or where he was going to go, I decided that I would stay in the truck in the morning and just try to find him before moving in. September 2, 2018 Since I knew I wasn’t hiking in any where I slept in a bit more the second day and finally got out of bed at 4:35 am; I couldn’t sleep any more. After getting ready, grabbing a coffee, driving out to the field, and getting parked it was still only 5:45 am and shooting light wasn’t until 6:25 am. With nothing better to do I browsed Instagram and looked at the monarchs that were hitting the ground across some of the coveted units in Western US; not a bad way to spend the morning waiting. As the sun started to rise, I could already tell there were fewer deer in the field. As the day broke into full sunlight, I found every deer but 3 bucks. I was missing Narrows, a forky with only one antler, and Double D. I drove around to check the other two sides that can’t be seen from my usual parking spot but I couldn’t locate them. In a last-ditch effort, I drove two miles south up a gravel road that leads to a great spotting point. This point is nice and high and gives you a great vantage, the problem is that you’re now looking over 2 miles away and the heat waves can make it difficult. I was scanning every possible surface that I was unable to see from my previous spot. Quickly I found three bust moving through the trees right on top of the pasture, they were out of sight from where I was before. As they moved through the trees it was hard to get any idea of what deer they were; the good part is they were starting to move lower down to where I could see them from my closer spotting location. I pulled in my spotter and relocated to where I was previously. As soon as I got setup, the three bucks were just breaking the skyline and I could quickly tell that it was Narrows, the one antlered fork, and Double D. They were feeding slowly from west to east which wasn’t going to do me any good, but every once in a while they would turn and feed a couple of steps down hill towards a patch of trees surrounding a pond. My thought was that I need to get into those trees.

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“I’d rather be in the trees and watch them feed east than in my truck and watch them feed into the trees,” I thought. I pulled my truck out of sight and into the ditch, it didn’t take me long to gather what little I needed and I was headed to the trees. Due to the lay of the land, I could get into the trees where they were headed and remain completely out of sight and I was able to move quite quickly. I got the where I had to cross one fence, I didn’t want to squeak the fence when going over top of it so I decided that it was best if I went under it. The bottom strand was quite high off the ground so this wasn’t going to be an issue, I reached over the top and placed my bow on the other side. I laid down on the damp morning dew and got positioned to slide under the fence. As I put my hands on the bottom wire to lift it just enough to go over my bino harness, a huge jolt of electricity ran though both of my hands and shocked me worse than I ever have in my life. Now I grew up on a ranch so I’m no stranger to electric fences, but this was different because I was a mere twenty feet from the charge station and my hands were wet from the morning dew. It was too late and I was already committed to going under the fence so I just dealt with it and got under a little quicker than normal. I made quick work of the last 150 yards that I had to cross to enter the trees, once in the trees I slowed down as I knew I’d be able to pick the deer out soon on the hill side above. I moved through the trees working to my way to the north edge where I figured they’d enter. Three quarters of the way through I stopped to glass the hill, when I went to lay my bow down, I ended laying it down on top of a fresh 78” mule deer shed. I picked up the shed and went to side step to hang it in the tree for later, and I couldn’t believe it but there was a fresh 151” elk shed. At this point I was feeling good, even if I blew the stalk it was a great morning. I stacked the two sheds and quickly located the deer above me about 250 yards and slowing grazing down to me. I moved forward the last sixty yards and got setup at the bottom of the trees on the north edge, I figured they would follow the small drainage below me to the pond. As the deer continued to feed towards me I could see that they were feeding along a path

that would take them to the top of the trees and above me. I carefully repositioned to the top side of the trees as the deer were now only about 180 yards out. I found a great spot and started ranging land marks in anticipation for them to come in. I couldn’t have scripted this any better, all the bucks were feeding at about 150 yards when Double D just picked up his head and started walking my direction. I watched him come towards me and I knew that I would have a great opportunity to draw when he was at sixty yards. As he went behind a huge bush and walked past my sixty yard marker I came to full draw. He is still coming my way; I settle in my anchor point, grip feels good and I am solid. He is now feeding at what I figure is forty yards and I have a great shooting lane. I settle my forty yard pin right in the sweet spot and start to pull the trigger. Just at everything starts to move, so does he. Right as I made the mental decision to shoot, Double D took a step towards me on an angle, that this did was move his body forward six inches and turn his broadside into a quartering shot. I watch the arrow pass though him but it’s a touch far back. He explodes and takes off running west ward, I have to run to follow him as he is headed over a small hill out of sight. I make it twenty yards up the small hill to find him standing at seventy five yards, and his head is hung low; I can tell he is hit hard. I pick up my glasses and find a blood spot, the entry hold is six inches back from where I was aiming and I knew he was quartering but I don’t know how hard. From the look of it I might have caught the back of one lung, the liver for sure, and I know the diaphragm has been opened up. I watch Double D move downhill and through a small patch of trees, he is moving quite slow. Now that he is on the other side of the trees, I am able to move in closer for a follow up shot. I get down into the trees and I come up the small hill expecting him to be at forty yards bedded along a canola swath, as I peek up I find that he has moved a bit farther out and is a little over a hundred yards from me. His head is on the ground so the large canola swath is blocking his vision. I make my way west of him another fifty yards so I can cross the three outside round canola swaths. Once across those I make my way back towards him, my plan is to come down between two swathes,

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and leave two swathes between us; if this works, I will be twelve yards from him. I get to the swath I want to go down and his head is still on the ground; the rows between the cut canola stalks are wide enough that I can step in between them. I go over my plan one more time in my head to make sure I’ve accounted for everything, the one last thing I need to do is collect some rocks. I start moving down the row toward the bedded deer, I am only about seventy yards from him at this point. The wind is blowing enough to cover the little noise I am making, within a few minutes I am position directly across from Double D at twelve yards. With the canola swath being so high it worked great because it hid me from his view, but now that I need to place an arrow in him it is working against me; this is where the pocked full of rocks comes in. My plan is to toss a rock over his back and land it about ten yards on the other side of him, while the rock is in the air I need to hook my release, come to full draw, get settled in, and be ready to shoot as soon as he stands. “What could go wrong with this plan?” I thought. Here goes rock number one, it lands, and the buck doesn’t even flinch. “Ok, let’s try another but not so far over him,” I think to myself. I throw the rock aiming five yards over him. As the rock is in midair, I struggle in the panic to get my release hooked; my anxiety goes into over drive.

“As the rock is in midair, I struggle in the panic to get my release hooked; my anxiety goes into over drive.” The rock hits the ground five feet from the buck, way closer than I wanted; nothing happens, he didn’t even flinch. At this point I can tell that the rocks aren’t going to work and I need a new plan. I come to full draw and walk across swath one of two between us, I figure the noise will be enough to make him stand up. I successfully cross the swath at full draw and Double D is still laying there, Double D is

now a mere seven yards directly east of me. I move another three yards to the south so that when he does stand, I will have a quartering away shot. Once there, I walk right up to the swath that he is laying along, my plan is to come to full draw and start walking across the swath his is laying against until I can see his body and get a shot off. Draw, anchor, and I take my first step. I’m now in the middle of the swath and only three yards from him. His body starts to come into view with the second step and I see where I need to place the arrow. I settle the pin and send it on its way. The hit is solid and Double D jumps up and takes off across canola swaths. He made it across two swaths and went down. Over the past hour my main objective was to get another arrow into him, so it would all be over, it wasn’t until now that I realized that I had just hunted and harvested a deer that I thought was impossible to kill. I got up to Double D and just admired him, he all the signs of a very old deer. His body was huge, his summer coat was gray and not red like the others. He had battle scars across his face and the huge Roman nose that is the tell-tale trait of a seasoned warrior. I called my wife to inform her of the news but I also wanted to see if she was able to bring our son Cannon out. As I grew up my grandfather involved me in hunting before I could walk or talk. I cherish every memory and picture I have to reflect on. I want to be sure that I give my son the same opportunity to grow up learning what hunting is, how we respect animals, and that taking the life of another living creature is not something to take lightly. Having my wife show up with my son was both an exciting and humbling moment. This is a moment that I had dreamt about for years. Not only did I harvest a majestic but that I’d been after for years, but I got to share the moment with the love of my life and our son; it was emotional to say the least. After telling her the story, I got down and showed Cannon the deer; it was amazing watching him explore new textures with his inexperienced hands. We took a few pictures, loaded up, and closed the chapter on Double D.

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A SMOKER OF A BIG GUY HOT ON A DOE IN THE STUBBLE! Cover Story By Adrian Vos

It all started on November 19,2017, when my friend Blaze and I were headed out to our hunting spot and saw two deer out in the field. With one quick look I knew this was a smoker of a deer and he was hot on a doe in the middle of a stubble field. 19 BGI-Fall-2019-final-print-ready.indd 19

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We got right up to 75 yards and he wouldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t leave the doe. It was such a cool experience to be able to watch a deer of this caliber totally out of his element and completely love struck. We got to watch him for quite a while before they finally took off. I quickly phoned my good friend Tyler to tell him about the deer we had seen.

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We got right up to 75 yards and he wouldn’t leave the doe. It was such a cool experience to be able to watch a deer of this caliber totally out of his element and completely love struck. We got to watch him for quite a while before they finally took off. I quickly phoned my good friend Tyler to tell him about the deer we had seen. I had already tagged out on a good 170” whitetail two days before so I figured we would try to get Tyler a crack at this big guy. We went out a few more times but he never made another slip. He had made his one mistake of the year and got away with it. November passed and all I could think about was finding his sheds. In early January I figured out where he was wintering and laid eyes on him again. After countless hours of shed hunting I finally ended up finding his left antler in mid-February, and his right antler about three weeks later with a pile of miles put on. I couldn’t wait to score these antlers up. They ended up scoring 172” with a 17” inside spread. May rolls around and I started getting all my cameras out and minerals set. Right away I started getting pictures of a deer with above average brow tines and pop bottle bases. I knew this was him 100%. Through the summer I got to watch him grow. This year he grew a couple extra points off his left g2 and down on his bases which added some great character. I got all my stands set up early close to where he was traveling in and out of the oat field. I checked my cameras every 5 weeks and kept my scent and presence to a minimum, until one day I knew something was off. I pulled up to my parking spot and noticed a truck had driven through the fence and out into the oat field. The truck tracks headed directly to my camera and stand, when I got there they were both gone. I was instantly fuming mad and just couldn’t believe someone would go through that much effort to go in there at night and steal it all. So what now? Do I set up a new camera and stand, in hopes they don’t come back for round two? Or do I abort mission and have no camera’s and go in blind for the archery opener? I decided to stay persistent and put a new camera and stand in. I’d just keep a better eye on the

area and let the farmer know what was up and luckily, they never came back. September 1st rolled around which marks the archery opener here in Alberta, I was in the tree stand early with high hopes, I hunted every evening the wind was right for my stands. I was really hoping I could get it done before I had to go guide a 16-day sheep hunt, but I never did see him again. All the trail camera pictures of him were at night and never in legal light. So, after my sheep hunting trip, I got right back in the stand. Finally, I laid eyes on him October 20th. He came out with five minutes of legal light left at 57 yards and was feeding. It was a tough decision, but I decided not to take the shot. I really wanted a shot within 40 yards in case he jumped the sting like a cagey old whitetail tend to do. The next night he came out again with his good buddy, a big old 4x but they were out at 100 yards. Things were looking a little more promising now at least with some sightings of him in the daylight, but I never did see him again in archery season. I set up a new stand better suited for rifle season and planned to plant my ass there for all of November. I sat almost every night until November 10th, I was driving to my spot and could see two deer about 1200 yards from the road, running across the field.

“The second I threw up my bino’s I knew it was him!” The second I threw up my bino’s I knew it was him! Bad thing was, he was on land where there’s no hunting. He was hot on a doe and was trailing behind her on a string. I quickly formulated a plan to get as close to him as I could on land I had hunting permission. I parked the truck and snuck a full quarters length to get closer to him. I got into 430 yards and all I could do was watch and pray that the doe would bring him across the fence where I could shoot. He brought her into an open poplar bush that you could see the deer moving around in. I could see two deer making their way through the bush towards the field. All I could think was it’s him, it’s gotta be him! They jumped the fence and I realized it was just two does...and they were headed right for me. I was

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Adrian Vos’ 2018 Whitetail mount. Tyler Pletz with High Point Taxidermy out of Rimbey Alberta did a magnificent job preserving this trophy of a lifetime”.

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sitting on the ground against a poplar tree, so I laid down flat on the ground in hopes of the does getting by me without being busted.

â&#x20AC;&#x153;I knew if they busted me the hunt was overâ&#x20AC;?

I knew if they busted me the hunt was over. They got by without detecting me and started feeding about 80 yards away. As I was laying on the ground, I caught movement out of the corner of my eye in the bush. I slowly raised my binos up trying not to get busted by the does, it was him! The hot doe was at the tree line ready to jump the fence with the big guy close behind, he was hot on her trail. I had the video camera on the tripod ready to go, pressed record and had it positioned where I figured he would stop for a shot. As soon as he got in the camera screen, he stopped perfectly just like he had read the script. I slowly sat up, shouldering my Remington 25-06. The last thing I remember was slowly squeezing the trigger right behind the shoulder and hearing the whaap! I rechambered another shell in record time, but there was no need for a follow up, I could tell it was really good hit. He ran 50 yards and piled up right in the

field. It was kind of a weird feeling that I had at that moment, I was super excited that I had got him but at the same time kind-of-sad that the quest was over. I loved the thrill of the chase and all the steps leading up to this moment, there is nothing like having history with a big old whitetail and putting all the pieces of the puzzle together. Thanks to my good pals Randy & Tyler for helping me load him up, take pictures, and celebrate that night. Last but not least, I have to thank my wife Ziandra and son Parker for spending every evening of the hunting season without me. Your understanding of my passion is my main reason I could close the deal on this deer. The boys and I threw a tape on him that night and with all his extras and great mass the numbers added up quick. He gross scores 184 7/8

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NO NAME, THE HEAVY HORNED WHITETAIL BUCK By Brendan Scheidt

It all started back in November 24, 2017. I had just finished up moose hunting north in the forest. The only thing on my mind was the big deer that I had trail camera pictures of, so off I went. 29 BGI-Fall-2019-final-print-ready.indd 29

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I parked my truck and was walking into my treestand around 3pm and before I got the stand I noticed a heavy horned buck staring in my direction at about 200 yards. Naturally, I started shaking and breathing heavily. As I brought my binoculars to my eyes, my heavy breathing fogged the lenses up so badly I could hardly see this new buck. I got a good enough look to know that I had no history with him. After wiping the lenses

and looking him over, I decided to give him a pass, even though he was definitely a mature whitetail buck. It was my first day out whitetail hunting, but the decision haunted me that night. I felt a bit better as I remembered my Dad always told me, “If you shoot a little one, you will never get the big one”. Hunting season went by quickly with zero sightings of the buck I was hunting that year, but I did have the opportunity to pass on this new deer I called “Big 4” about five times and was beginning to get to know him well.

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Now that hunting season was over, my favorite season of all began, shed hunting season. So, I moved trail cameras to where the deer were going to winter in order to see which bucks survived the season. Thinking that “Big 4” had only showed up to that area because of the rut, I did not expect him to still be there, but to my surprise, on the first camera check, there he was. Big body, heavy bases, nice brows. I thought to myself, “He must be going downhill but those sure are going to be some nice sheds!” January

went by and me and a shed hunting buddy Ashley were watching the area like hawks in hopes to pick up his sheds. On February 17th, I was away snowmobiling in the mountains and I got the picture from Ashley of the Big Four’s right side. The hunt was on for the other side before the snow covered it up. We managed to get the other side the following weekend, and when I say we, I mean Ashley. I met him on the road with my snowmobile to finally hold the sheds off Big 4. After holding them for about twenty minutes, I had to give

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them back, even though I didn’t want to! Fast forward to August of 2018. The ticks had finally died down enough for me to be brave enough to go set out some trail cameras. With the new archery mule deer season opening up in my area, it gave me an excuse to scout even more than a usual year. As is the case most years, no big whitetails were seen in all my travels scouting. My first camera check was September 11. Going through the pictures as usual, I muttered, “Grass.... Grass.... Leaf.... Grass.... Doe and more grass.” This continued camera after camera until I got to my final camera to check. As I was scrolling through, I almost couldn’t believe my eyes, it was some great bucks! As I looked through the pictures of them passing through, the buck in the back caught my eye. I zoomed in and it just looked like solid velvet on his right side. I thought to myself, “It must be just be a blurry picture.” The next picture he was facing the camera, Holy %#@!. “Which deer was this?” I thought. All I knew was that it was a palmated 5x5 with some stickers and brow tines that made me drool on the keyboard. I quickly sent the new found buck to Ashley to see if he recognized this buck. His reply was he had no idea, but it sure looked to be one worth getting a better look at. I agreed and put two more cameras in this area in hopes of getting some pictures of the deer we now called “No Name”. During the archery season, I was busy crawling through fields and laying with mule deer for hours. On September 27th, I connected with a buck we named “Stockpile”. Now I could focus on getting to know this newly found whitetail buck. I checked cameras, but it became clear that No Name was camera shy and obviously didn’t want his picture taken anymore that month. One evening during muzzleloader season I was heading home from No Name’s area and noticed some bigger bodies deer in the field. I Stopped the truck and put the spotting scope on the window. It was quite dark, but there were four bucks and I was quite certain I had finally seen No Name for the first time. With two days left in the short muzzleloader season, I was hunkered in, hoping he would make another appearance in the field I saw him in. Knowing it couldn’t be that easy,

I still tried, but muzzleloader season came to an uneventful end. I was now cleaning my muzzleloader and checking cameras. All of October went by, and I had no pictures of No Name. I was beginning to think his name should have been Ghost or something along those lines. My hopes of getting another picture of No Name to see how big he really was fading away. On November 7th I got a teaser pic of him for the first time since September 11th. When I say teaser picture I mean all it was just a picture of his left horn as he snuck by. Staring at this new picture for what seemed like an hour trying to somehow move him back 10’ and let the camera take another picture, but that was not an option unfortunately. What I did notice in this picture was that either he had very small ears or his beams and bases were way above normal. One last check on November 17th before the rifle season opened and I finally got the picture I had been waiting for! As I studied the picture, I thought, “Wait a minute, no way, it could be?” I went back on my phone, looking at pictures of Big 4 from the year before and soon realized Big 4 and No Name were the same buck! Only he grew about 30 some inches at least from the previous year. With this new found knowledge and realizing how big this deer was, it was sure going to make going back to our tent in the northern forest moose hunting for a couple days very difficult. November 20th and 21st passed by slowly while moose hunting in the northern forest because all I could think of was No Name and what group of does was he after every moment. I woke up early on the 22nd and came home. It was a day that hunters dread. Warm, but with blowing snow, which had the deer bedded down for the morning. After some lunch and a much needed shower from sleeping in a tent for 3 nights, I was headed back out. On my way to No Names home I saw quite a bit of rut activity and it wasn’t just small 100” bucks chasing anymore, as I was noticing the 150” range deer were now partnered up with hot does. That evening I saw lots of deer but of course, there was no sign of No Name.

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I found a tree to rest on, took a deep breath, and thought to myself, “This is my chance, don’t mess it up!” I squeezed the trigger and No Name went down but with his head still up, I chambered another round quickly and sent another bullet his way. It was a miss. Buck fever had clearly set in, so I settled down and made the next shot count and he was down for good.

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November 23 was better. The wind had switched, and I was able to sit in my treestand for the morning. With lots of deer activity, I was quite certain No Name wouldn’t be far too far away but again no sightings of him, I sat until about 11 then decided to sneak out for some lunch. During lunch I did what every other person does, goes on social media and looks at all the big deer shot! It had me excited to get back out so at 2 pm I was on my way back to sit. I parked my truck along the bushline about 600 yards from my treestand.

“As I was watching her, I noticed she kept looking back. I had a pretty good idea that meant she was being followed by a buck” No sooner did I get settled down then I saw a doe walk out of the trees around 500 yards away. As I was watching her, I noticed she kept looking back. I had a pretty good idea that meant she was being followed by a buck. Fifteen minutes passed by and out he came! There he was, “No Name” in the field at 3:12 pm. To say that when he walked out at 75 yards I was able to keep the crosshairs on him would be a lie. I was shaking so badly I could hardly keep the binoculars on him as the doe led him across a small field into a larger bushline that is about 60 yards wide and goes for a couple miles the other way. All that I could think of is that I now have a .1% chance the doe comes my way, or 99.9% chance she will go the other way! An hour passed by and I figured my assessment of odds was correct and they were gone. Some other deer were in the field but no sign of the doe or No Name. Scenarios were going through my mind. “Should I have got down and tried sneaking up? Do I try following them now? I still have just over an hour of legal shooting light so what should I do?” Then my instincts kicked in and said, “Wait it out, there is no sense scaring him out of the area.”

Around 4:45, I happened to glance back towards my truck and saw a doe standing 25 yards from it. Thinking to myself, “Where did she come from and why is she walking into the wide open?” I looked to her left, about 50 yards and there, No Name was also standing by my truck. As I watched them slowly make their way into the small bushline 25 yards behind my truck, I knew it was now or never. I had 35 minutes to close the gap and try and make a shot. Instantly, I am fast walking to my truck in my giant Sorel boots with my socks bunched up in the front which made for a very uncomfortable 600-yard speedhike. Finally, I got back to truck. The trip seemed to take forever but was probably only ten minutes. I slowly crept through the bush line in hopes the doe hadn’t lured No Name too far away from where I had last saw them. Sure enough, there they were, 235 yards from my truck and 225 yards from me. I found a tree to rest on, took a deep breath, and thought to myself, “This is my chance, don’t mess it up!” I squeezed the trigger and No Name went down but with his head still up, I chambered another round quickly and sent another bullet his way. It was a miss. Buck fever had clearly set in, so I settled down and made the next shot count and he was down for good. I was in disbelief about what had just happened. Walking up to this deer was a moment I will never forget!

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FLYER 10, THE MOST RESPECTED WHITETAIL By Emily Schaad

I never once thought that in 2015 such an ordinary, 120 class, two-year-old whitetail would end up being the buck that would put my skills, patience and knowledge to the test four years later. 36 BGI-Fall-2019-final-print-ready.indd 36

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In 2015, I had many good potential bucks on camera, but this particular deer always caught my eye because of his facial colorations. This deer had such a gray face with two large, dark red patches above his eyes that made him very unique. Even after shedding his antlers, you could always tell which buck was him. That year, in March, I managed to pick up one of his sheds, only about 100 yards from my stand. The 2016 season rolled around, and I had several nice bucks coming in during the summer and in the early season. One was a beautiful 140 class 10

point with a large kicker off of his G2. It didn’t take me long to realize that this buck was that eight point from the year before! The unusual facial colorations made it easy to figure out. He definitely was unique with that kicker, so I gave him the name of, “Flyer 10”. Flyer 10 hung around all October and into November and I was hoping he would make it through the season because he had incredible amounts of potential for as much as he grew from the previous year.

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This hunt was such an emotional ride and this deer almost got the best of me. I will never again in my life ever have more respect for a white-tailed deer than I did for this one. His will to live and his toughness can never be matched. I never once thought in my wildest dreams that I could actually make my dream of harvesting this deer come true.

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Unfortunately, gun season came around and I never saw him again that season. I was 100% positive that he had probably been killed, so I started concentrating on other bucks for the next season. Summer of 2017 soon came, and it was time to start mineral sites and planning for the upcoming season. I had trail cameras out all summer long and never really had too much buck activity until the start of August. I had a few nice 130 class bucks coming in with great potential but just never got a picture of anything big enough to shoot. August 28th rolled around, and it was time for my two-week Idaho hunting trip. I made sure to fill all of my feeders before I left, hoping that something good would show up while I was gone. Soon enough, September 12th arrived, and my trip was over. I couldn’t wait to check all of my cameras. The first camera I decided to check was at my main hunting area which was the site of most action. To my amazement, I had a few thousand pictures in two weeks! Scrolling through the photos, I saw a great buck that was definitely a shooter. I was in complete shock when I realized what deer it actually was! It was Flyer 10! This time, he was a tall tined 11 point with an even longer kicker off that same G2 again and I estimated him to score 160. I could hardly believe he lived through the previous season since he completely disappeared after gun season and never showed up until almost a year later. Finally, the first day of bow season arrived and I was excited to get into the tree stand. Unfortunately, the first couple weeks of season were literally in the 80’s so I decided that was way too hot to be in the woods. Even with the hot temperatures, Flyer 10 was showing up most nights on camera. Once the temperatures cooled, he started moving around a lot more. Before I knew it, I was consistently getting pictures of him on both sides of the road at each of my stands. He was becoming extremely hard to pattern because you just never knew what side he was going to be on or where he stayed. I always found myself hunting one stand and he would show up at the other! November came along, and it was time for my usual week-long hunting vacation. I had high hopes for

seeing that deer since the bucks were really starting to move. On the third day of my vacation, I had a buck behind my stand grunting with a doe in the brush and thought sure it was him but ended up being another large buck that I could not pass up, so I took the opportunity and ended up killing a 161 1/8 giant! I was extremely happy with this tremendous buck especially since I had no idea that he even existed! Even after killing that great buck, Flyer 10 showed up on a daily basis to at least one of my stands. As the season went, I made it a goal to try to keep that buck alive for the next season, and thus find his sheds in the spring. Thankfully, I was able to succeed, and he made it through the season. I managed to find one of his sheds not far from my stand! The antler was tremendous, and I was hoping I would be able to find the other side, but he dropped it on the neighbor’s property and they had picked it up. Luckily, we were able to compare our scores of each side and found that he would have scored 160 right on the dot! From that point on, I could not wait until next season because the way Flyer 10 was growing each year, I knew he would be much larger. As spring passed and summer came around, I was excited to get cameras out to see just how much Flyer 10 grew since the previous season. I had made up my mind that this was the only buck I was going to set my sights on and knew I was going to have to work extremely hard to be able to harvest such a mature deer. As it got later into summer, I still hadn’t gotten a picture of him on either side of the road. Finally, at last I was able to get three pictures of him in the late summer and I knew it was him since he still carried that same kicker off his G2 but wasn’t sure what to think of him. Looking at the pictures, I felt like he had actually decreased in size compared to the previous year. Still not sure what to think, my only hope was that he would put on antler growth and I would get more pictures of him. Early September approached, and I still hadn’t gotten any more pictures of him anywhere. Every evening I

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sat outside just hoping to see him feeding in the field behind my house. At last, one evening right before dark, I saw a buck in the back of the field that caught my eye. I grabbed the binoculars and saw that it was him! To my amazement, he had put on several inches of antler since the last pictures. He was extremely wide, and l definitely knew he was big. Unfortunately, that was the last time I saw Flyer 10 until the very end of September when I was able to get a few hard-antlered pictures of him. That was the first time since July that I had gotten him on camera, so I could finally see just how big he really was. In comparing pictures from 2017 to 2018, he lost tine length but gained an extra point and was wider than before, so I was guessing him to be close to the 160 mark. I still wasn’t sure though, since sometimes trail camera photos can be so deceiving of a buck’s actual size. So, needless to say, I was excited to get into the stand and start hunting. The first couple weeks of season were fairly slow and still Flyer 10 was nowhere near coming in during daylight hours. I had a beautiful 140 class 3 year old that was coming in a lot and was fortunate enough to video him during one of my evening sits. Finally, on October 11th, I was able to get the little ounce of hope that I needed to know that he was close in the area during daylight hours! Sitting in the stand that afternoon was like any other time in the stand except about 20 minutes before dark, something told me to turn around and look behind me in the food plot. There he stood about 60 yards away looking at the does that were currently feeding right by my stand. I was in complete shock because I had never seen this buck in daylight from the stand in the four years I had been watching him! I was praying that this deer would come my way, but given his mature age, I knew I wasn’t going to get that lucky. Just like I predicted, he continued to feed throughout the food plot and eventually disappeared into the darkness. My second encounter with this buck was on Monday, November 5th, which was my first day of my hunting vacation. My afternoon sit was extremely slow and quiet, as if all the deer had just vanished. Finally, about

30 minutes before dark, it was like someone opened up the deer gates and every deer in the county was heading my way! I had does all around me and small bucks chasing in every direction. Out of nowhere, I heard a few deer running across my food plot directly behind me. I was afraid to turn around to look because I had so many deer in front of me and under my stand that I would have been sure to spook one by moving. As I was sitting there, I thought to myself that I probably should have been standing and in position in case of a buck coming in. As soon as that crossed my mind, I heard heavy foot steps to my left. I slowly looked over in that direction and to my amazement Flyer 10 was only 30 yards away and heading right towards me! I tried to get my release hooked onto my bow, but my release somehow got twisted the opposite direction and by the time I twisted it back around, he was already in front of me at 18 yards. At that point, I couldn’t move. I tried everything to stand up and into position to make the shot, but every time I even moved a muscle, he somehow knew I was there and would look right at me. At that moment, I knew there was no chance in getting up, so I attempted to draw back facing him while sitting in my stand. It was such an awkward position that I could only draw about halfway back. He immediately knew that something was in the tree and spooked and walked around the back of my stand with the does. Once he was behind me, I was able to stand up and grab my doe bleat to try to get his attention. The doe bleat immediately got the does attention and they headed straight back towards me and he was coming with them! Unfortunately, he was a lot smarter than they were and would only come back to around 35 yards. He faced me but would not come in all the way. After that night, I was just sick knowing that I could have spooked that buck enough that he would never come back in the daylight to that stand again. The rest of the week was extremely slow with little deer movement and no sign of Flyer 10, even on camera at night, which really had me concerned. I had passed up a couple nice 130 class bucks that week but no mature buck movement at all. Finally, that Saturday and Sunday night, he showed up on camera. I was so

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relieved that he was back. Unfortunately, my hunting vacation was over, and I wasn’t going to be able to hunt until the next weekend. After such a long week at work wishing I was in the stand, the weekend finally came. I had to work that Saturday morning which was really going to push me for time in getting to the stand before the deer started moving. I rushed home as quickly as I could and turned on my OZ Chamber to get rid of any odors on my ScentLok clothing while I was taking a shower in my scent control soap. Twenty minutes later, I was on my way to the stand. Once again, the afternoon was incredibly slow. The only movement seemed to be squirrels chasing each other around the woods. Around 4:45, just like on November 5th, the deer started coming out of nowhere and flooding to my stand! Six does ended up coming in and started feeding in front of my stand. As I continued to watch them, I noticed movement on down over the bank coming towards me. All I could see was white antlers and an extremely wide rack. I knew it wasn’t Flyer 10 but thought it was the other wide ten point I also had my eye on, so I got into position and turned my Tactacam on. Once he came up over the bank, I realized that the buck was a wide eight point that I had never seen before but chose not to shoot. I decided to leave my Tactacam on to video the buck for a while for some good footage, and while videoing him, I heard a deep mature buck grunt to my right in the small ravine. I had a gut feeling that this deer was Flyer 10 and I could not mess this up this time! The big eight point heard that deep grunt and immediately his hair stood up and he laid his ears back and down over the bank he went. Finally, I could see the other buck, and it was indeed Flyer 10! He let out a loud snort wheeze at the big eight and immediately started coming up over the bank but very slowly. He had gotten into a pretty good fight because he was limping extremely bad and his shoulder looked as if it was dislocated. As he finally made his way up to my stand, I drew back, but when I drew back something wasn’t right.

By some freak of nature, I had no cam stop and my rest wasn’t coming up properly, so my arrow actually fell off the backside of my bow and onto my hand! While in full draw, I attempted to pick my arrow up with my thumb and let down enough to get it back onto my rest. During this whole process, Flyer 10 was staring right at me and took off because of all the commotion with my bow. By some grace of God, he stopped at 30 yards and was in a hard quartering away position and somehow gave me enough time to get back on him. I wasn’t going to take the shot, but something told me to anyway. So, with my rest not working and holding full weight of my bow, I managed to let the arrow fly. Unfortunately, my arrow deflected clear back behind his flank area. I was absolutely devastated knowing that I had just made a bad shot on the buck I had dreamed about for four years. Knowing how bad my shot was, I chose to head back to the house and wait until morning to start looking. Needless to say, it was a night of absolutely no sleep and lots of tears. The next morning finally arrived, which seemed like it took days to come. I put all of my hunting clothes on and headed to the woods with my bow. I wanted to look for this deer alone, so I didn’t have a lot of scent and noise being spread through the woods. I looked for a few hours and saw blood the whole way, but I could tell the buck was very disoriented due to his circular patterns he was making and how he had almost made it all the back to my stand. Knowing it was going to rain that evening, I decided to make the decision to call Walt Allen with his deer tracking dog in order to find my buck. A little over an hour later, Walt showed up and to the woods we went. We went to the last bit of blood that I had found and let the dog start tracking from there. The dog immediately started going in a different direction than I anticipated the deer going in. When we finally made it to the creek bottom, we found the first bloody bed where he had laid down. As we went in several directions from that bed trying to get on a good trail, the dog finally found something to go on. Less than 100 yards later, we found a second bed and 10 yards beyond that, we found the third. The dog immediately changed his reaction to the blood

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and we knew that the buck was still alive at that point and we had just jumped him! I was so nervous because since we jumped him I didn’t know if I would be able to get close enough to him to make another shot with my bow. We slowly crept over the ridge top and there he was slowly going up the bank across from us. We immediately stopped and waited for him to bed back down. Fortunately, as soon as he made it to the top he bedded down, and I was able to get within 15 yards to put another arrow into the giant. After he finally expired, my emotions were out of control. I turned around and Walt was giving me high fives and I couldn’t stop the tears from rolling. I could not believe that everything actually came together, and I could finally get my hands on this deer. To my amazement, Flyer 10 ended up being larger than I had anticipated and still scored 158 even with two broken tines.

“After he finally expired, my emotions were out of control!” I never once thought in my wildest dreams that I could actually make my dream of harvesting this deer come true. God was definitely looking out for me on this day and as much as I wanted to give up, he made me keep pushing on. I am truly blessed for the opportunities that I have been given, and if you have a dream, continue to follow it because dreams do come true!

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PERFECT TIMING By Tyler Richards

There is often a lot of hours dedicated to kill a mature buck. Trying to locate a whitetail and figure out their patterns is most definitely the hardest part on its own.

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This particular deer was an absolute ghost and a perfect example of this. He consistently avoided trail cameras which made it nearly impossible to locate him, nevertheless I tried my best to pattern him. The only way that I actually knew this buck existed initially, was a local hunter who I trusted said he had seen a monster in the area.

Coincidentally, I had already had a camera up in the area for a bull elk, not really expecting to find any whitetail. I had just finished checking my trail camera and was on my way back home at dusk when I saw a few deer beside a creek with one that really stood out, a big body and what appeared be a nice big frame.

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I was unsure of how big he actually was with the lack of sunlight but knew that I wanted to get a better look. So, I did what most people would do, which was try and figure out where he would be the next morning in hopes of connecting on him. With no luck in the morning, I went back out that afternoon and just kept hunting that area consistently. Waiting patiently, hoping to at least catch a glimpse of him on the trail camera to figure out if he was worth chasing, this cagey old whitetail seemed to know how to stay completely out of sight. That evening was pretty quiet, with nothing making an appearance besides a few does and a little 2x2. This was a consistent story nearly every hunt, and there was no sign of the deer that I had seen before. By this point, there was only a few days left in the season and I started to think I might not get an

opportunity at him. However, the morning of the 25th of November is when my luck changed. My brother and I headed out for a quick drive when we had seen a few deer along a backside of a hill about 500 yards out just across the road from where I had first laid eyes on the buck two weeks before. We caught a glimpse of a big framed deer, and I was almost positive it was the same deer that I had seen a couple weeks prior. My brother had already tagged out on a nice whitetail earlier in the season, so it was my turn to make it count. We had parked along the wind strip of trees and approached these deer very slowly, trying not to spook them. We eventually got up to about 300 yards away, which is where we stopped and got a good rest and view to shoot from. As we watched, he was chasing a doe, not a clue in the world that we were there. I then

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waited for him to stop, but when he did, something was wrong, and instantly he was on high alert. It seemed like he knew that something was not right as he looked directly at as. We tried to get a better look, as our initial thought was that he might be a 160â&#x20AC;? class deer by the look of his frame and unable to see all of his extra points. I was then a little hesitant to shoot. However, as soon as he turned his head, I knew he was a shooter after seeing a couple of the extra points and the long flyer off the left G-2. He trotted about 15 yards and stopped, looking once again right at us. I knew it was now or never, and I had a great rest and clear shot, so I took it! Hitting him directly through the front shoulder, he ran about 75 yards before he fell over in clear view of us! Walking up to this unique Alberta whitetail was an experience I will not soon forget.

It was a little disappointing to have absolutely no history off this buck, but that is amazing in itself. He spent years staying hidden from everyone. Needless to say, it was a huge relief to finally catch up with this mature buck. The strangest part about it all is that we have never had any sightings nor found his sheds from the previous years before, even though we had hunted the area fairly aggressively. Adding to the mystery is that he was in a particular area where there are very few deer. The odd muley and elk is all we would usually see. I guess their unpredictability is why some deer grow to be this caliber. For me, that unknown is why whitetail deer are my favorite big game animal to hunt.

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12 YEAR WAIT By Kyle Boody

In 2018, after building my draw priority for the past 12 years, I finally drew my bull moose tag, and to say I was excited to have that tag in my pocket would be a giant understatement. 52 BGI-Fall-2019-final-print-ready.indd 52

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Being a professional guide and guiding clients, family and friends to bulls, I was itching to finally get the chance to chase these beasts for myself. I was guiding for most of September, but took the last week of the month off to chase bulls during the start of the rut. On the way home from guiding on Thursday, I picked up a new Hoyt and was amped up to get home, set it up, and get it dialed in, not to mention getting to finally see my beautiful wife again! The following Monday I headed out for my first hunt of the year as the shooter, with my good friend Jesse. We covered a lot of miles but at the end of the day, came out empty handed. The next day I headed out again, this time with my brother Dave. We hunted hard and turned up quite a few moose. I even called in a beautiful, young 35” bull but opted to pass, as I was hoping for a more mature bull to put my tag on. Later that day, about an hour and a half before dark, we were driving through some new country when

we spotted some mule deer in the canola field. Both having mule deer tags in our pockets, we stopped to glass them, when out of the corner of my eye I spotted some movement on the edge of the tree line. At the same time my brother said, “There’s a bull!” Sure enough, the movement I saw was the bull’s pan as he was making a rut hole. As soon as I put the spotting scope on him, I knew he was a shooter! Only problem was, we didn’t have permission on the land! After I got some Phone Skope footage of him, we pulled out the maps and found the land owners name. After a quick conversation with the very kind and friendly land owner we had permission to go in after the bull. We packed up our gear and got ready to go in after him. Just as we started the walk, I spotted him walking across the canola field. He had already gone over half a mile and was now on a different property! We quickly hopped back in to the truck and repeated the process. After another phone call we had permission on the other property and the chase was on again! We headed

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around the two 1/4 sections to where we had last seen him and found his tracks crossing the road. A short time later we had eyes on him again, but he was still on the move. Because we were losing daylight fast and he was obviously on a mission to find a hot cow, there wasn’t anything we could do to get within bow range of the old bull that night. We opted to sit in the truck and watch him until dark. As we pulled away, I said to my brother, “If he doesn’t find a hot cow he will be back to check that rut hole”. Now anyone who has hunted prairie moose during the rut knows that those bulls will cover a lot of ground looking for a hot cow. That showed as we tracked, what we think was him, for roughly six miles the next day. We spent the whole day looking but never could lay eyes on him again. We actually never even saw a moose! Bummed out and thinking we would never see the bull again, we headed home. I was sick and feeling warn out after not really having a day off in roughly a month, so I decided to stay home Thursday, let my

body rest, and make a game plan to get back after it on Friday. Friday morning, I walked out the door at 5:30 AM into a fog so thick, I could barely see 50 yards! Feeling a little down on my luck, I headed out to pick up my brother in hopes that it would clear up and we would still have a chance at spotting that bull after daylight. As the sun came up, the fog just seemed to get worse. So, we cruised around in the areas where the fog wasn’t so thick, hoping to lay eyes on the bull who had quickly earned the nickname “Ghost”. Eventually, around 8:00 AM, we were driving back past where we had first seen the bull on Tuesday and luckily the fog had cleared in that area just enough that we could see roughly 3/4 of a mile. As we drove slowly down the road my brother said, “Hold up! back up for a second!” I put the truck in reverse and backed up, not knowing what my brother was looking at. He said, “Stop” and put up his binoculars. No sooner had he done that, when he said, “There’s a bull!” I put up my binoculars

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I have to say a huge thank you to my wife for supporting me in my passion and putting up with me being gone so much over the fall. Thank you to my brother Dave for helping me on the journey to killing this bull and capturing the footage and photos. And thank you to my good friend Jesse Bruce for teaching me just about everything I know about moose. 2018 is a year I will not soon forget.

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and saw the bull through the fog about half a mile away in the canola field. As soon as the bull turned his head I said, “That’s him man!” I could hardly believe that THE bull had come all the way back to check his rut hole! He was on the move and I knew we needed to move fast if I was going to get an opportunity at the bull. I parked the truck, grabbed my bow and pack, as my brother grabbed the camera and we started running. We got to the edge of a small patch of bush that looked like a good place to call from. It took me a second to catch my breath and then I started calling. I let out a couple cow calls, a bull grunt, and then started thrashing a tree, making it appear as though there was a cow in heat and another bull with her in “Ghost’s” area. Knowing he had made that rut hole only 150 yards from where I was calling he wouldn’t like the sound of another bull with a hot cow and wouldn’t be able to resist coming in to have a look. It only took five minutes for him to appear through the fog at 150 yards and that’s when the shakes set in! He looked like a TANK coming through the

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fog! As he came, I was trying to get a range on him but the fog was so thick my range finder wouldn’t work! It was at that moment I was incredibly thankful that I had been working on judging yardages all year. I immediately started running the numbers through my head and kept getting 85 yards as the number. I then did the sexiest cow call I could, hoping that he would turn and come closer but to no avail. He was bound and determined to circle us and get our wind as these old bulls do! I waited as long as possible in hopes that he would still come closer but he only had 10 more steps till he was in the trees and would get our wind so I dialed my sight, drew back, and grunted at him. He stopped quartered towards me. I went through my shot process, settled my pin, and made a smooth release. There was almost a moment of silence as the arrow cut through the fog before connecting with flesh. The bull spun, ran 50 yards and stopped with his head down for a few seconds before turning and trotting away. I was instantly flooded with mixed emotions. The shot

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felt good and sounded good but with the thick fog I couldn’t see where it hit him! We waited for about ten minutes, talking about what had just happened before we walked up to where he had been standing to look for blood. We found his tracks but there was no blood. My heart sank as we followed his tracks for about 30 yards with still no blood. Then my brother said, “There’s blood!” sure enough there was one little tiny drop of blood! I took a few more steps, looked up, and just about fell over. There, right in-front of me, was a big pool of lung blood where he had stood with his head hanging! It was at that moment I knew I had just killed the prairie bull of my dreams! The emotions I felt in that moment are indescribable. I got a little choked up, and a few tears of happiness were shed! After some phone calls and texts, we continued on the blood trail which wasn’t hard, as it was a red carpet that we could see 50 yards in-front of us!! A short while later we came over a hill and through the fog

I could see the bull laying there dead! It was almost surreal walking up to this bull in his final resting place. I had finally fulfilled my dream to kill a big bull moose with my bow after waiting 12 years to draw the tag. The feelings of happiness and relief, mixed with a little bit of sadness of taking this old monarch’s life, had me at a loss for words. At 52 1/8” with long pans, big fronts, and lots of mass, this prairie bull is truly a bull of a lifetime for me, and I know I will be hard pressed to beat him! I am so thankful to God for the opportunity at a bull of this caliber and for all the meat this bull has provided for my family and I! I have to say a huge thank you to my wife for supporting me in my passion and putting up with me being gone so much over the fall. Thank you to my brother Dave for helping me on the journey to killing this bull and capturing the footage and photos. And thank you to my good friend Jesse Bruce for teaching me just about everything I know about moose. 2018 is a year I will not soon forget.

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At 194â&#x20AC;? gross and a net book score of 178 2/8â&#x20AC;?, I had my first Booner! In hindsight, all things happen for a reason in life and hopefully my life will be to continue my deer hunting passion for all the days I have left as it is my passion and what I enjoy most of all.

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Part 11

SNAP, THE MAGNIFICENT WHITETAIL BUCK By Parry Boyko

This is the story of a magnificent whitetail buck I nicknamed “Snap”. His name was short for Snapshot and he was not the buck I wanted, but the buck I needed! 61 BGI-Fall-2019-final-print-ready.indd 61

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He was my once in a lifetime shot to prove to myself that all the effort and the all-consuming aspects of the hunting lifestyle that I and many other people I know, are worth it. I have managed to build great relationships with the landowners and ranchers over the years and they trust me and I trust them. In the fall, it’s a great feeling to know that if either I or they need anything, all we have to do is ask. This is very special Saskatchewan thing, a Canadian prairie strong way of land management. On this particular piece of land, I have been hunting it seriously for the past six years and three years ago a really nice young buck appeared on my deer radar and I knew that I just had to try to get him. I nicknamed him Honcho because he reminded me of an old Honda quad, not much to look at but impressed at the stuff he could do. Over the next two years he grew into a real monarch of the province with a Boone and Crockett score well over the 170-inch minimum. However, this year it seemed like the harder I hunted, the more I had roadblocks to endure. From a marauding large black bear destroying my ground blinds and demolishing my cameras after eating all my deer bait, to people driving all over posted land, disturbing everything I had worked to do, it was a real challenge. But I stuck with it, repaired the damage and soldiered on. In August and September, I had a dozen bucks of various sizes and ages all being regular visitors to my ambush site, until the trouble making black bear scared the tar out of everything to the point where I had to abandon that place until the start of November. Once I got all setup again, I realized that Honcho was gone. It was really a hard pill to swallow. “Taken by another lucky hunter or lost to the ravages of mother nature,” I thought, was also hoping to see him again. November 11th rolled around and I kept catching glimpses of a large framed buck that was chasing does around my setup, but never giving me a clear view of his headgear. It was just enough to make me wonder what was going on, but as the rut progressed I started getting pictures of him, first at night and then all day, every day and I knew I had get setup perfectly and avoid any mistakes in my setup. Everything had to be

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in turbo stealth mode for opening day in order for me to have any chance at this buck. Opening day rolled around and it happened! My first sighting of Snap was 17 minutes before legal shooting time! I clearly made him out in my Leupold VX3 scope and the crosshairs were on him but I had to let him go. During the rest of the morning, as other bucks continued to rut and come into and out of my view, I thought about Snap while also wondering about Honcho.

“Within seconds of confirming it was him, a 165 grain Tsx .300 WSM round was on the way!” After four long days of sitting dawn til dusk, I had to rethink my approach to the area so I let the area rest for three days and when the wind was right, I made the decision to hike in at an off time for movement, at 10 am. I walked in the long way, about 600 yards, on November 26th and I waited, and waited. Finally, at 5:32pm, three minutes until legal time, I saw an antler at the hill and sure enough, the buck it was attached to slowly came out into the open. Within seconds of confirming it was him, a 165 grain Tsx .300 WSM round was on the way! Lost in the recoil of the shot, I wondered how the shot was? After ten minutes, I went to the last place and clicked on my cell phone flashlight. I did not find any blood after making four

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big circles, then my battery died. I had no choice but to walk the 600 yards all the way out to the truck, then head back into my spot after grabbing my good flashlight. From there, I proceeded to lose my marbles, after not finding any blood or sign of a hit! I headed home and racked my brain as to what may have happened, and remembered the tendency of hit deer to run into the wind and directly into the thickest cover available, which, by design was a small bluff

right beside my set up. I headed back out determined to scour every inch of that bluff. As soon as I got to the bluff, within 50 yards of the edge, I found him! At 194â&#x20AC;? gross and a net book score of 178 2/8â&#x20AC;?, I had my first Booner! In hindsight, all things happen for a reason in life and hopefully my life will be to continue my deer hunting passion for all the days I have left as it is my passion and what I enjoy most of all.

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A TRUE MONARCH OF THE ALBERTA WILDERNESS By Daniel Matichuk 65 BGI-Fall-2019-final-print-ready.indd 65

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When your good buddy harvests giant whitetail deer year after year and invites you to come hunting with him in the rut for six days, what answer can you give other than, “Heck yes!” Traditionally, I have been a spot and stalk hunter. When people ask me how I am successful, my answer is always, “Put some miles on your boots”, so when I was told we would be sitting in a tree stand for nearly eight hours a day in -25-degree Celsius weather, I thought it would be a piece of cake. Looking back now, I was completely wrong and really had no idea what I was in for. This plan began in the summer of 2018 when my good buddy Dana White told me to come to Alberta and hunt with him for a week. I booked the time off and we put the plans in place for the rut in November. While the 2018 hunting season had some awesome highlights, I was mostly looking forward to this whitetail hunt, as it was highly out of my regular comfort zone, and something very different for me. I made the nine-hour drive from B.C and right away that evening we were getting set up. The plan was that we would be hunting the next morning! The first morning was very cold. The drive to our spot was long, and the quad ride felt even longer. We arrived at the stand in the darkness and walked in by headlamp in order to get ourselves set up and ready for the day. The glamor and excitement wore off when I was freezing my butt off and only a few deer wandered by throughout the day, but that was the strategy, put yourself in the right spot and wait for the right deer to chase a doe by the stand. I’ll admit that I had horrendous patience throughout this entire hunt and on top of that I really wanted some deer meat for the freezer. I must have been a headache for Dana as he only would allow me to harvest an old, mature buck and yet I pestered him about letting me take every

buck that walked by. On the 4th day, in the morning a hot doe came running by at 30 yards with a young 3x3 close behind, I didn’t bother to ask to shoot him since I knew the drill by then. Dana persisted until a young 5x5 came walking down the exact same trail at 30 yards an hour later and I gave Him the usual hard time about letting me get some deer meat, Dana let out a deep sigh and told me, “If you really want him, then you can shoot him” to which I responded with excitement and instantly began getting my .270 ready to go. I readied my rifle, but as I looked at this young buck, I had a lot of different thoughts running through my head and I knew that Dana didn’t want me to harvest him. He was a young buck with great potential for the future and suddenly I had a change of heart. Dana was absolutely shocked when he heard my safety click back on and I told him, “This deer is not very big or old, so I think I should let him go”. We watched him for about 30 seconds meandering down the doe’s trail until we heard some loud snorts coming our way. I looked through my binoculars and saw a big bodied deer coming down the trail. The only words I said were, “Big body” and then, as this ancient old buck emerged through the trees, Dana replied simply, “Yup”. There were no words needed, as we both knew right away this was a deer we wanted to harvest. As this deer got closer and closer, I began to shake with excitement, knowing he was coming down the exact 30 yard trail made the anticipation even more difficult to manage. I waited for Dana to get a good shot with the camera and when this buck was at 25 yards, I made a great shot that put him down in seconds. Little did I know that I had just harvested an ancient old warrior that Dana had been watching

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A free online version of every issue is there for viewing! No need to sign up, no obligation, no cost, just 100% FREE viewing of real hunting stories from real hunters.

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Not only did I gain a freezer full of meat and an amazing trophy, but I gained a whole new level of respect for these deer and what they endure. I also gained more respect for my friend Dana White, whom works incredibly hard every day whether it be moving stands, checking cameras or filming other people.

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on trail camera photos for years. This deer had never made an appearance in person until that day and it took Dana a moment to figure out which deer this was. Not only did I gain a freezer full of meat and an amazing trophy, but I gained a whole new level of respect for these deer and what they endure. I also gained more respect for my friend Dana White, whom works incredibly hard every day whether it be moving stands, checking cameras or filming other people. I cannot thank him enough for allowing me this opportunity and I can’t wait to hunt with him again. Words cannot express how grateful I am for this buck. He managed to survive despite all the hunters, predators and harsh winters. He managed to live to such an old age for a whitetail deer. While he may not hit the record books, to me he is a true monarch of the Alberta wilderness and he was harvested at the perfect time before the predators, or cold winter, or simply old age took him.

“He managed to survive despite all the hunters, predators and harsh winters.” Not only did I gain a freezer full of meat and an amazing trophy, but I gained a whole new level of respect for these deer and what they endure. I also gained more respect for my friend Dana White, whom works incredibly hard every day whether it be moving stands, checking cameras or filming other people. I cannot thank him enough for allowing me this opportunity and I can’t wait to hunt with him again. Words cannot express how grateful I am for this buck. He managed to survive despite all the hunters, predators and harsh winters. He managed to live to such an old age for a whitetail deer. While he may not hit the record books, to me he is a true monarch of the Alberta wilderness and he was harvested at the perfect time before the predators, or cold winter, or simply old age took him.

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“G” THE VELVET GHOST BUCK By Robert Ubdegrove

What started out as a pre-season scout for geese quickly became the chase of my life. Spotting a buck I later named “G”, I instantly knew that he was a buck I had to spend some time trying to figure out.

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The late summer of 2016, my wife Kelly and I headed back to the northern hills that overlook the swamps and marshes where he lived. Shortly before sunset, I noticed movement in the high marsh grass. Glassing over, I could see huge velvet antlers rocking side to side as he approached the edge. With light fading quickly I could only make out a huge frame with multiple points and what look like a split G2. With darkness falling he blended into the background. He was all I could think about during the drive home.

hung my portable stand and topped up my sites. After reviewing my photos, I had noticed he had only been back once after he shredded the velvet off September 15th. I decided to stay off my stand until he had returned. Three weeks or more had passed with no sightings or trail cam photos. He has become a hard horned ghost.

I started setting up trail cams over well known community scrapes. Multiple other bucks were showing up and using them all, but “G” remained a mystery. My 2016 season was passing fast, and with no photos of The next day, I returned to set up a trail camera and him. My general tag had yet to be filled. I was left with itdidn’t take him long to present me with some beautiful no choice but to focus some energy on another buck. trail camera photos. He was a Mainframe 11 with a November 3rd I filled my rifle tag on a mature nine-point split G2. I realized he was a buck from one of my sites at another location. Satisfied with my harvest and still the year before. He had a clip out of the top of his having another tag available, “G” was all I could think right ear making him easy to identify. He had gained about. I headed out with my CVA Wolf slung over my approximately 20 to 30 inches of growth. My desire shoulder. I spent the remainder of the season scouting to hunt any other buck quickly vanished. He was the areas that I thought he might be. He was a hard horned buck for me! Excited for the upcoming season, I sighted ghost! With no news of a buck with a split G2 taken in my muzzleloader. My daughter Kaitlyn and I had around the area, I could only assume he was alive and

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I was entered in Hnatiuk’s big buck contest here in Nova Scotia. We headed up to get him scored. He gross scored 171 4/8” green. He took the top spot of the bow season category. Holding true for the duration of the season and winning me a new PSE bow. Nina is currently mounting “G” in their taxidermy studio for me to enjoy and share with friends and family.

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well. It was my mission to find his core area. After reviewing maps, I visited those areas that look to be a good wintering and bedding area. Finding a fair amount of scrapes and rubs in those areas, I was encouraged. Early winter 2017, I headed out with my son Logan and our home trained shed hunting dog Nala. We headed to an area to look for antlers. With snow down we came across a big set of tracks. We then followed them to the south side of the ridge, finding fresh beds everywhere. For the first time I felt I was on the right track, I was sure we found his core bedding area. We chose to back out, not wanting to pressure them and possibly push them out. We headed out but not before Nala dug up a small 8 point shed that was a match to a set from the previous year. We returned early spring and found five sheds, two of which belonged to “G”. Both left sides, including one from 2015. The other was his unmistakable split g2 from the season past. Satisfied I had found his core bedding area, I packed a camera and some blaze orange to start a mineral site for our next shed hunt the following weekend. I grabbed my pack and we headed out to find the remaining sides and set up the camera. We set the camera up on a well-used trail, off the ridge. We then headed to look for sheds. It wasn’t very long before we started gathering sheds off the south side where we found the beds the previous winter. We finish off the day with six sheds and one was the missing side from 2016. Pictures started rolling in from the mineral site and it was clear “G” was a dominant buck in there. He continued to use the site till August 20th, 2017, when the visits became less frequent. He started to become a ghost once again. September 11th was the season opener for the early bow season and I had only a few visits in September. With poor winds and

few visits, I opted to wait till later in the week to pull the card and possibly hunt. Friday evening, winds were good so I headed in to pull my card. He was in September 13th partly rubbed out and no further visits to the site. My heart sank, thinking he would start running around, proving his dominance and becoming a hard horn ghost once again. I started placing cams on scrapes lines to try and figure out the area he could possibly be rutting. With only a few blurry pictures of a buck that could or could not be him working the scrapes, I decided to try and obtain permission to a private property that I had not been the year prior. I was granted access to some of the new properties so I quickly set up trail cameras to attempt to locate him. He was gone, nowhere to be found right up until December 3rd, the day after rifle season closed. He was returning to the ridge. That gave me a week before the close of muzzleloader season. I had questionable winds but opted to sit for the final day of season. I was reminded why wind is so important. “G” came up to the ridge to my right, winded me, turned and ran away. I was busted and my 2017 season was over! I decided to leave all of my trail cameras out to try and keep tabs on him. December 24th, I went in to top-up. I viewed the pictures and he’d been gone nine days. I walked the south ridge out. I could see multiple beds on the flat edge of the bank. I looked over in disbelief as one side of “G’s” currant cast was laying there next to a well-used bed. I looked around and could not see the other side. Not wanting to disturb it too much I quickly exited. I assumed it was a fresh drop, within days at most. December 26th I returned with my dog Nala. I reviewed my camera but still no pictures. We walked over to the south ridge again and before Nala could get to it I could see it laying five yards from the bed! He must have returned to the bed after I left on the 24th leaving me a Christmas present. I now had

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the complete set from 2017. I started to get pictures of him occasionally all winter. Spring rolled around and I setup my mineral site once again to watch him grow. June frost killed most of the green up and he was hitting the minerals hard. Summer flew by and I was practicing my shot at 35 yards. I anticipate that would be the shot I would be presented with, as that was my distance from my stand to my camera where he was most often. I was feeling confident with my bow. Thinking a shot in velvet was my only chance at the hard horn ghost, I knew I had to get it done early. I was watching the winds for opening week. Thursday looked promising with a switch in wind direction later that evening. I headed in with my gear in my bag towards my stand. I felt it necessary to dress in the field to minimize my odours after the two kilometer hike. I undressed and wiped down and sprayed my body with scent away. Dressed, I headed in slowly to my stand, not wanting to alert any deer or break a sweat. I climbed up and settled for the evening hunt.

I drew back, settled my 35-yard pin and released my arrow. He bolted and I could see my arrow sticking out. Around 6:30, I could feel the wind switching. I chose to sneak out and end my sit, fearing I may get winded again. Saturday, September 15th, with perfect light winds I find myself repeating my routine. I settled in shortly after 4 p.m. It was a hot and clear day. At 6 o’clock sharp, I heard a sharp snort and moments later he was in view. He walked out to feed and he looked in my direction to scan the area. After what felt like an eternity, he turned his head away and I stood up. Once again he looked back and I froze. After a few seconds he felt everything was okay and he put his head down. I drew back, settled my 35-yard pin and released my arrow. He bolted and I could see my arrow sticking out. and snapped the arrow but continued to flee away! I had made a well-placed shot. He crashed as he turned

I started shaking so bad I nearly fell. I had to climb down to the base of my tree. I gathered my thoughts then sent a text to my hunting partner Kevin, a message that simply said, “Arrow in”. He replied, “You’re not saying what I think you are”. I said, “Yes, I just poked G!” After calling my wife to share the news, I went to check the piece of arrow that snapped off. It had good blood on it. I then attempted the recovery. After tracking for a bit, I lost the blood trail so I decided to back out. I went home and arranged help with the search. Kevin could not assist until after he was done work. We then returned shortly after 11 pm, five hours after the shot. We took my dog Nala to assist in the tracking but kept her close as we looked for sign. After finding where he altered his route, we got back on the trail and we recovered him shortly after midnight, September 16th, which happens to be my birthday. I don’t know if I’ll ever top that present! We got him out of the nastiest thicket and headed home. I was entered in Hnatiuk’s big buck contest here in Nova Scotia. We headed up to get him scored. He gross scored 171 4/8” green. He took the top spot of the bow season category. Holding true for the duration of the season and winning me a new PSE bow. Nina is currently mounting “G” in their taxidermy studio for me to enjoy and share with friends and family.

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I thought I just screwed up my chance. I had a possible 200 inch whitetail in front of me at under 20 yards, and I have no shot, and worst of all he was now alert. He turned around and started to walk away, ears perked and ready to bolt when he stopped one last time to check things out.

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CAPTAIN CROOK By Daryk Eckert

It all started in 2015 when I picked up a new lease here in southeast Ohio that was not far from our family farm. I had thousands of pictures of a nice deer in both velvet and hard horned. I knew he wasn’t a shooter in my eyes, but he was a solid 140” deer with tons of potential. As the season rolled on, I had encounter after encounter with this deer, both on my lease and a mile away on a family friends property, which would soon become his safe haven, that I have hunted for years. He was really testing my ability to pass him up. Constantly hoping he would make it another year, I kept letting him walk and finally the season closed with him looking good and healthy. The next spring rolled around, and I was able to pick up one of his sheds. As summer was coming on strong, the Covert trail cameras weren’t catching him on the Lucky Buck Mineral very much. As it got closer to the season, I heard the neighbor had been getting quite a few pictures of him. At this point I was just hoping he would out smart him and make it to his safe haven around mid-October, like he did the previous year. Sure enough, on October the 6th he started showing up on my end of things. However, this year he was much wiser. Staying nocturnal until the rut came around, I knew he would be difficult to get a shot on. He gave me just two opportunities that season and the closest

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was 60 yards. As the year went on and the coverts were keeping a close eye on Captain Crook, he eventually showed up with no horns. The hunt was on! I had never been more determined in my life to find out all the info I could about just one deer. By this point I was losing sleep over him, thinking of what could be. The shed season left me, yet again, with just one of his sides. As the next season slowly came around, Captain Crook yet again stayed more on the neighbors than on my property. As we tried to keep Captain Crook a secret, it was soon leaked all over town that there was a giant running around the area! All I could do was hope he would make it to his safe haven one more time. This time I had a very good idea of exactly where he would go. I just had to get lucky and catch him in the day light. October the 13th I got a phone call from a close friend saying they saw him cross the road, heading towards his safe haven. I then knew it was the right time to finally step foot into the woods for the first time all year. I had went into that area a few weeks before season to hang the perfect set, which I called, “The Captain Crook set” on my Scoutlook Hunting app.

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I knew it was my only opportunity to kill this mega giant. The next morning I snuck into his core area and waited for day break. As the fog set in, I could hear deer all around me as they picked up acorns from all directions of my stand but I couldn’t see but 25 or 30 yards. I heard some leaves making a racket directly behind of me, straight down wind. I could pick out a pretty good sized deer making a scrape but could not tell exactly what it was. It finally started to come closer and closer, then I saw exactly who it was! As I grabbed my bow and made an attempt to turn around and prepare for I shot, I hit my rattling horns with the top cam on my Mathews Halon. The deer stopped in his tracks and so did my heart. I thought I just screwed up my chance. I had a possible 200 inch whitetail in front of me at under 20 yards, and I have no shot, and worst of all he was now alert. He turned around and started to walk away, ears perked and ready to bolt when he stopped one last time to check things out. 27 yards quartering away and I made the perfect shot! The rage extreme did its job to perfection and put him down in under

50 yards! After I saw him go down, my heart started to beat again. The amount of emotions that over took my body was unlike anything that I had ever experienced before. I could not believe what had just happened. I couldn’t stop shaking and even shed a few tears. After waiting about an hour, I got down and started walking up to the deer I had worked so hard to pattern and outsmart. As I put my hands on him another rush of emotions hit. I don’t know if it was because I just killed a 200+ free range whitetail or that I no longer had him to play this crazy game against. Date of kill: Oct 14th 7:30am Weather: 45 degrees and foggy with a slight breeze out of the Southeast Private land Mathews Halon 6 shooting Gold Tip arrows and Rage Chisel Tip Extreme broadheads Hunted him out of a Millennium treestand By myself Green score of 210 1/8 20 score able points 5.5 years old

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